


All Hallows'

by wynnebat



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, Ghosts, Halloween, Light Angst, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Original Percival Graves Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23900131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: The veil between this world and the next is thin on Halloween. Percival is well aware of this. He’s been visited by his great-grandmother on many occasions, who hands out congratulations on his various promotions paired with stern admonishments about continuing the family line lest the Graves name dies out.This time, he's visited by a very different spirit.
Relationships: Original Percival Graves/Harry Potter
Comments: 13
Kudos: 453





	All Hallows'

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Mini Prompt Challenge, 3/1/20.

The veil between this world and the next is thin on Halloween. Percival is well aware of this. He’s been visited by his great-grandmother on many occasions, who hands out congratulations on his various promotions paired with stern admonishments about continuing the family line lest the Graves name dies out. Graves has faced death many times. He doesn’t fear it. An eternity of being nagged by his departed family does sound rather unappealing, but it doesn’t keep him from doing what he wants in life.

His great-grandmother’s life is over. Percival’s own life continues on despite many attempts to the contrary, the most recent being that of Grindelwald’s. There is something heavy about surviving a Dark Lord’s madness. It doesn’t sit well with him. Work has been a unsatisfactory distraction, surrounded by people who had been ignorant of his absence for months, finding no fault in the deception while Percival languished in his makeshift prison.

It has left a bitter taste in his mouth. The living have been enough of a disappointment. Just once, Percival welcomes what spirits will visit him tonight.

His house is warded against everyone but him, but the dead have no use for wards. They aren’t ghosts or inferi. There is nothing unnatural about the spirits of Halloween.

A gust of wind through the closed windows of his study brings one in.

Percival takes a sip of his liquor in preparation, but it isn’t his great-grandmother who arrives. It is a man who died young, perhaps in his mid-twenties, with messy hair and ill-fitting robes. He appears facing the window on the other side of the study and approaches the window. The streetlights shine through him, lending him a golden glow.

“This is interesting,” says the visitor, still facing the outdoors. To Percival’s eye, there is little of interest in the well to do residential street of the city’s hidden magical borough. His visitor leans against the glass with unconcealed interest.

“Truly,” Percival replies. He doesn’t mean the city.

His visitor startles, turning around to face Percival. Glasses perch on his nose and the robes are no better from the front, but they suit him; a billowy ghost standing in the light of the window. Pale as a sheet, misty and not quite given form, he is still a handsome man. Percival admires him for a moment, then forces himself to stop, remembering that most of his visitors have been family.

He raises his glass to his visitor and asks, not quite politely, “Are you here to remark on my life choices?”

“Yes,” his visitor tells him, looking him over. “Why are you all alone in a big house on Halloween? Aren’t you lonely?”

What is the use in lying to a dead man? His visitor will be gone soon enough, called away to whatever it is that lingers beyond the veil. There is no need for pride, for desperately pretending that his life has not changed since being abducted and impersonated. Percival sets the glass down on the table beside his armchair. Simply, he says, “I am.”

Only two words, and they’re like pulling splinters from his wand. Before, he rarely spared a thought to regret. Now, on this cold and empty evening, he wonders what his life could have looked at, had he had someone to come home to other than a revolving door of spirits once per year.

“I’ll provide the company, you provide the life choices,” his visitor tells him, taking a seat on the cushioned footrest across from Percival’s armchair. There are no other seats; this is Percival’s private study and no one but the occasional spirit is allowed. “What did you expect me to chide you about?”

Percival huffs, looking down at his visitor. “My lack of a wife and children, for one. The other matters are confidential.”

“Nothing’s confidential on this side of the veil,” his visitor tells him.

“What’s your name?”

“Confidential,” his visitor replies, ghostly eyes all but sparkling with humor. Then he gives in. “I’m Harry. I don’t care if you don’t have a wife and kids.”

“You must not be an ancestor of mine.”

“This would be bloody awkward if I were,” Harry replies with a certain look. “You look like you could use some company.”

Percival can’t honestly disagree, but the logistics of it leave him befuddled. “And what kind of company could a spirit offer?”

Harry reaches up, holding his hand out for Percival to shake, to take. “Want to find out?”

Never having suffered from a lack of curiosity or ambition, Percival takes what is offered. Harry’s hand is solid under his. The ghostly glow of his visitor’s skin darkens to the color of healthy, living skin, the mist fading to reveal black robes and dark hair and green eyes behind his glasses. Percival offers a tug and Harry shows no hesitance, sliding close.

“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me on Halloween,” Harry tells him.

As the night continues, Percival realizes he’s never had a better Halloween. On the morning of November first, his visitor is still here, legs tangled with Percival’s.

Percival closes his eyes and returns to sleep. He’ll deal with it later.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm also on [tumblr](https://wynnefic.tumblr.com/).


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